Our bones locked when I came to say goodbye

To my earth country, when I stepped on split roads,

My tainted accent, my too-full body

To push the fleshiest woods,

The greens of sacred mounds, my grief and havoc.

I was born this numb from parting.

Here I call to the waters of Ireland, the rain,

The foam of the sea and tides to anchor

Something deeper than my skin,

Pierce the highest note of unillumined hearth.

Would you come to make a fire, prime my nerves to flames

And tell me not to go?

When we heard of death in other blues and mosses

Not quite as vivid as ours,

For not a single mist can roost or boast of colour

Unhindered by the stars,

When we heard of it

We might have thought it leashed to soot,

We might have thought it frail, unsouled

And obliterated in a dry-eyed, half-meek cry.

What could I call this place?

Nil and home and some ancestral instrument

Plucking notes from the blood-picked marrow

Of our language?

Yes, it was all nothing this bitter earth,

This other sleeplessness,

Mud riverbed, mendacious light,

Where I invoked weeds to choke out

The brightest flowers,

Spelled over the soil

And planted the feathers of a murdered bird

To give you hope.